What I will never understand about modern dating

I wrote on Friday about a study that shows being single is better for you, but honestly; this hopeless romantic is of course also just desperately looking for a boy for forever and all the clichés that come with it. But man, the road is tough, because dating is anything but what it used to be. It's confusing, it's misleading, and people are not that creative anymore (thankfully I do have some tips for that last one. a number of tips). Anyway, there are a few things that I just will never understand. Not that I'm not sometimes guilty of it myself, but so be it. Here they come:

Judging someone purely on a photo

I’d be lying if I said I don't pay attention to looks when it comes to the male gender, but nowadays it's really a battlefield on dating apps. You only need one photo where you look medium and you get swiped away immediately. How superficial it has all become in the past few years. Such a shame.

Ghosting

Instead of just dumping someone normally, you don't hear anything from them anymore. No explanation, nothing. Communicating is of course so incredibly 2007.

The concept of ‘benching’

Giving someone the impression that you really like them a lot, but in reality, they are your plan B if plan A doesn't work out. Just because you don't want to be alone. And often the worst part is that you really know when you are someone's plan B, but you still keep meeting with that person because you hope that he or she will still choose you. Which of course never happens...

Lack of effort

If you like someone, it makes perfect sense that you want to be with that person a lot. The problem nowadays is that you don't want to come across as too dependent, and so you end up doing the opposite because you're afraid of losing the other person. But it backfires, precisely because of the lack of effort, you get pushed aside.

The whole texting back situation

You don't want to respond too quickly because then you come across as somewhat desperate. But if you wait too long, you come across as uninterested. As if there is some sort of schedule for texting nowadays.
It's all a bit much for me, I don't understand anything anymore... Then just #ForeverAlone.